Electronic Tools

Many people have been asking for official D&D PDFs, and WotC has been addressing the need for electronic reference materials at the table in various ways. According to Mashable, WotC is releasing a D&D Reader App this fall. It's not a PDF, but it's basically a D&D-specific Kindle-esque app for iOS and Android. Mashable reports that "Each book is broken up into different sections. So with, say, the Player's Handbook, you can tap on little thumbnails in your library to check out the introduction, a step-by-step guide to character creation, a rundown of races, individual sections for each character class, equipment, and all the other pieces that, together, form the D&D Player's Handbook."

The kind folks over at Smiteworks have sent along some sneak peeks at the Fantasy Grounds virtual tabletop version of the upcoming D&D adventure Tomb of Annihilation. It'll be available from Smiteworks and Steam on September 8th, the same day it appears in some local game stores (and 11 days before it appears in most!) Take a look!

Fantasy Grounds has been busy working on the Starfinder package for its Virtual Tabletop (VTT). They've sent out a few "sneak peek" screenshots to show their progress. "John (aka Moon Wizard) is busy working on the the underlying mechanic changes from the PFRPG ruleset and Doug (aka ddavison) is working on the re-skinning and graphics that you see [below]."

Hello everyone, Darryl here with help me help me we went from no news to too much news and I don’t know what to do! Gen Con, Diana Jones, ENnies, highly anticipated products released, all new products and licenses announced, it’s just too much!

D&D Beyond, the official online toolkit for 5th Edition D&D, is now live - just in time for Gen Con! With a character builder, online rules compendium, digital character sheet, and more, the software has been in beta testing for a while. D&D's relationship with electronic tools has never been an easy one -- Master Tools, Gleemax, DungeonScape all being failed initiatives - but D&D Beyond looks like it might be the one which actually breaks that curse.

This week from EN Publishing we have a new plug-in location in the Over the Next Hill series over on EN5ider, the 5th Edition Patreon, a look at how the legal system works in a fantasy medieval world filled with magic over on TRAILseeker, the Pathfinder Patreon, and a monster-creation system (and web app!) for GMs who need a little help creating NPCs and critters for the What's OLD is NEW system - along with an accompanying web app which does all the work for you!

One thing people often hesitate over when it comes to the Virtual Tabletop versions of books they already own is that the electronic versions cost as much as the originals, and this can reduce the number of players using the platforms. Fantasy Grounds has recognised this, and has decided to take action by reducing the prices of Fantasy Grounds versions of books by up to 40%, depending on the book. That means something like the Dungeon Master's Guide or Volo's Guide to Monsters will go from $49.99 to $29.99.

The release date for the D&D electronic tools suite is August 15th, 2017! "The “Hero Tier” subscription, for $3/month, will be able to make unlimited characters and use homebrew content from other users. For $6/month, the “Master Tier” subscription unlocks the ability to share paid content with up to 12 other players across all of their games, as mentioned above. That paid content includes rule supplements, such as Volo's Guide to Monsters, which will cost a fixed, one-time price of $30. Adventure modules, such as Curse of Strahd, will cost $25 (though special Founders’ Pricing on the first seven days after launch will instead be $20). Free accounts can purchase these supplements as well, and no content will be lost if your paid subscription lapses."

D&D Beyond was covered at the What's Next For D&D? panel at Origins Game Fair. In a previous article, I covered Tomb of Annihilation, courtesy of Twitter user Kato Katonian who live-tweeted the panel. This article covers D&D Beyond, the upcoming digital tools suite for Dungeons & Dragons. Curse's Adam Bradford was on the panel to represent D&D Beyond.

Hello everyone, Darryl here with a LOT of Starfinder updates, Fantasy Grounds gets official Pathfinder content (retroactively winning me an online argument), a new graphic novel on the origins of Dungeons & Dragons, details on the new life for GURPS books, and more!

I mentioned previously that Pathfinder was coming to Fantasy Grounds. That happened last week, meaning that the Virtual Table Top is now an official licensee, and the first batch of products, including the Core Rules, Bestiary, Kingmaker adventure path, and more are already available. FG's head honcho Doug Davison said that "they've been very strong sellers so far, supplanting the official D&D add-ons that normally dominate our Weekly Top Sellers list in the first day. It is customary for a new release to have a spike as interest and hype are the highest at this stage; however, most third-party products still fail to dislodge D&D from the top seller list. This will be an interesting metric to watch as they go head to head and especially as new products launch for both publishers at the same time."

The D&D Beyond beta is now officially live! Head on over, give it a whirl, and post your thoughts right here! What do you think? How did you get on? What are your initial first thoughts? The first phase contains the Compendium and Listings (the character builder is Phase 2, not open yet, with Phase 3 being campaign management and home-brew content). You will need a Twitch account to participate (Curse, the developer of D&D Beyond, is owned by Twitch).

Adam Bradford, the senior product manager of upcoming D&D digital toolset D&D Beyond has answered a few questions about the product over at the Tribality website. You can read the full interview at the link below, but here are the highlights. Nothing major, but a few bits like filtering content, roadmap features like initiative trackers, color-coded tabs, etc.

Wizards of the Coast has once again launched a digital effort for Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition with Curse's D&D Beyond. This is a good time to review D&D's rocky relationship with digital platforms and the opportunities where Beyond might succeed where previous attempts have failed.

D&D Beyond has just been announced! Coming this summer, and billed as "Your digital D&D source", it has a compendium of official content, character builder and manager, the ability to use home-brew content, D&D forums, and is usable on any device. A 1-minute announcement trailer can be seen below. D&D Beyond is produced by a company called Curse Inc, owned by Twitch. Right now, there's a signup for the Beta version. More info as/when it becomes available! [UPDATES: The D&D Beyond folks have offered some more info, which I have included below; I will be chatting with them later this week, with luck!]

When Chris Cocks, the recently-named CEO of Wizards of the Coast, took on his new position we speculated how his digital gaming background, strongly grounded in Magic: The Gathering, might influence the company's vision. Thanks to a letter he released in January, we have a bit more insight into how he plans to translate his vision into reality.

Virtual Tabletop Roll20 has hit a big milestone - 2 million users! The VTT launched in April 2012 with 1,500 users. I asked Roll20's brand manager, Suzanne Wallace, what metric that was, exactly, and she confirmed that that means "The metric is 2 million Roll20 accounts, ever!" That's an astonishing number of users, and goes to show the incredible growth in online gaming. In fact, it's a sizeable percentage of the total number of people worldwide playing, for example, D&D.

Darry posted an excellent News Digest Year In Review 2016 the other day, which takes a look at some of the biggest news stories of the year. I thought it would be fun to look at what were the most popular news items here on EN World over the last twelve months. Listed were the 50 most popular tabletop RPG news items on EN World of 2016. It's interesting to see that 27 of them - just over half - were about D&D 5th Edition specifically. The top item was my original scoop about Curse of Strahd, which shows that folks still come to the EN World for the rumours - which is, of course, how the site started.